I Am Infected With Coronavirus
If you listen to our Sirius radio show, you'd know that we haven't been on since Wednesday. I didn't want to say it out loud until I got my results, but it's because I got the coronavirus. Once my test results came back yesterday, I figured "might as well turn it into content" because I don't have SHIT else to do since I won't be leaving my apartment until my next test which is scheduled for Thursday.
I started the day off by polling our audience:
The results of this poll were about as shocking as the results of my covid test after my taste and smell waved bye bye. You all are fucking assholes.
Anyways let's rewind it back a few days. I figured let's give a day by day breakdown of my personal experience with this asshole of a virus. Please note - this is just my personal experience, which is different from everyone else's. I know this is asking a lot of you half wits, but try your hardest to refrain from getting political because of this blog. My mentions are unreadable because of it.
And we're off!
Wednesday:
I beat Smitty's ass in a Warzone tournament where there were odds at stake:
And because I beat his ass, he has to walk around NYC like this for the next week:
Charlie Chaplain was a funny guy apparently, so Smitty can use his Philips Norelco One Blade to shave his mustache just like Chaplain did in the 20s or whatever. Perfect - he won't be confused as anyone other than Charlie and Charlie only.
~Anyways~
I went to bed Wednesday night right around midnight. Right before that I texted a friend "going to bed, I feel a cold coming on" and literally as soon as I got under my covers, I started shivering uncontrollably. Fell asleep quickly, but woke up like this on…
THURSDAY:
I was soaked head to fucking toe in sweat, but couldn't get out from under my blankets because of the chills. I just laid there shivering uncontrollably for 30 mins or so until I mustered up the courage to get to the bathroom to take a shower nap. Now I've talked about shower naps before - it's what I do when I'm super hungover. Basically I just turn all the lights out, crank the shower as hot as I can handle it, and take a nap on the floor of the shower with the rain falling down on me. The steam clears me out and I get out of it feeling better than when I got in it. If you haven't tried it before, highly recommend. It's WSD approved.
Except it didn't work. Remember how I had the chills? Well going from cold air, to having hot water dumped on you for 30 mins, back to cold air when sick wasn't a good idea in hind sight. It made me shiver my tits off when I got out of the shower. This is when I knew I 100% needed to get tested. I texted the rest of the Chicago office and anyone I was in close contact with in the last week or so that I'm sick, getting tested, and they need to get tested too.
I called up about 15 different places, all of which were in my area, and none of which could get me in immediately. Then I found a place at Broadway and Diversey that had a few cancellations so they got me in. That's about a 10 min walk from me, so I threw on my Penn hoodie and got there looking like this:
Yes, that's sweat through the hoodie. Not good! I get to the urgent care center and they immediately take my temp. 100.8 degrees. I give them my symptoms, they jam a Q-tip down my nose a few times, and they said I'll have my results in 2-4 days.
I go home and pass the FUCK out on my couch. Slept allllll day long. As bad as my chills were, by FAR the worst part on Wednesday and Thursday was my body aches. My lower back was absolutely fried and it felt like someone took a bat to my shoulders. Awful. But I was actually bed ridden for most of Thursday.
The funny thing is is that my stomach was never remotely affected. I lost my appetite for reasons which I'll get to, but I never had a remotely upset stomach in terms of avoiding certain foods or throwing up or anything. No shits either. That part of me was 100% fine even at my worst.
I just had zero energy at all. Slept all day. Then we get to
FRIDAY:
I feel better, but not great still. Still pouring sweat. Still sleeping all day long, or attempting to because of how bad my back pain is at this point. It was legit debilitating
A girl dropped this stuff off for me, not to brag (she left it at the door and we never made eye contact let alone physical contact, so don't talk shit)
What a gal. Took my temperature again right away, and got this:
Still a fever, but improving. She dropped this off for me around 6pm and this is when I started feeling SLIGHTLY better. Enough to consume some food.
Now I had heard that one of the tell tale signs was that people who contract the coronavirus is the loss of taste and smell. This hadn't happened to me yet, so at this point on Friday I was still holding out hope I didn't have it. But around dinnertime on Friday, I noticed I couldn't taste anything other than citrus. I thought I was kinda tricking my brain into not being able to taste anything, but the sense was slowly leaving me.
Around 9pm I was watching TV and I was dripping with sweat again…. but I felt better. I could be completely wrong here, but this is what I believe is called "breaking the fever" where you have one last spat of sweats before your fever is gone.
And sure enough, it was gone when I woke up on
SATURDAY:
Woke up, shat, showered, shaved and felt way better. Took my temperature about 5x and my fever was gone. I still felt like I had gotten hit by a truck and my back was still absurdly tender, but everything else felt pretty good, all things considered, and I gradually got better throughout the day. Come dinnertime I felt good. Not just corona good, good good. But I made two Italian sausages for dinner and guess what? Couldn't taste them or smell them whatsoever. This is when I knew I officially had it. Even though I felt better, no longer had a fever and was okay, I knew it right then and right there because my sense of taste and smell was COMPLETELY wiped out.
The best way I can describe it is it felt like I was eating food immediately after getting hopped up on Novocaine at the dentist. Just felt like mush was in my mouth with no presence.
I can still taste a few things, however:
Salt - I ate bacon on Saturday and bacon is awesome…. except with Coronavirus. With coronavirus, bacon just tastes like a salt lick. Pure salt, nothing else. It's tragic
Citrus - I can kinda/sorta taste OJ
Spicy - spicy isn't a flavor, so yes, spicy still affects a corona victim. I will not be eating any ghost peppers. That would still suck ass.
And nothing else. Not toothpaste, not anything at all. Just mush. Vodka, bourbon, wine, etc…. all just liquids going down your throat. They're all basically indistinguishable from each other. I will 100% be using this as a way to lose weight. Probably…. eh who am I kidding I'm gonna be gross forever.
But back to Saturday - I watched about 15 straight hours of college football while improving throughout the day. I was bored at this point so I just got super high off 3 chi which was awesome… but also sucked. I kept going to my fridge to eat and when I'd get there I'd realize it was an exercise in futility since I can't taste anything to quell my munchies. Fucking sucks.
That brings us to…
SUNDAY:
I wake up feeling like a million bucks. My sense of smell and taste completely waved bye bye, but I had some pep in my step. Stomach, brain, head, eyes, temperature, etc. all as normal as can be. If it weren't for the world being in the middle of a pandemic, I felt so good I would have 100% gone out and gotten hammered for football yesterday, but instead I was cooped up in my 800 square foot apartment. Sucks ass because I legit feel 100% normal at this point.
And that's when I get the video call link from the nurse practitioner at my urgent care facility. The convo went just like this (no joke this is exactly how it went)
Nurse: "Hey Dave, you're positive for covid-19, don't leave your house until Thursday when we'll get you in for a re-test if you're feeling better"
Me: "I am feeling better, I'm about to hit up Gaslight to get some beers and hot wings"
Nurse: "….. what"
Me: "Kidding, I'm not leaving my place, it was a joke, ha ha"
Nurse: "you shouldn't joke like that, people are idiots and actually do that"
Me: "Not me, see ya thursday doc"
Ironically enough, the moment I became official was the moment I realized that I was 100% fine. Like all day yesterday I felt GREAT. I couldn't have felt better aside from my taste and smell.
This is my experience. I was sick for 2 days and now I'm good…. at least good as in my body feels completely fine. I will not and have not left my apartment until Thursday when my practitioner and I decided that should be a good day to re-test, and re-test hopefully negative.
The boredom is real. I'm going to be blogging my dick off the next few days, at least until we can go back to radio and carrying out our audio obligations.
Also - I have to say this because people are fucking idiots. That goes without say. But this is my personal experience - not anybody else's. I am more than fine and the virus didn't affect me too much at all. Worst part by far was the lower back pain. That's not the case for many other people. I'm in no way shape or form trying to downplay the disease, so don't take this blog as such.
The floor is now yours to argue the politics of the pandemic in the comment section. If anything changes for me I'll blog it or whatever but as of now I feel 100% completely and totally fine. I have been WAY WAY WAY sicker before. This doesn't stack up to many flus or colds that I've had in the past.
One last note - as far as I'm aware, everyone else in the Chicago office has tested negative. How that's possible I have no idea considering we breath down each other's neck's every day in a 10x10 box and my symptoms started coming on late Wednesday, aka a handful of hours after I saw the rest of the crew. That part makes NO sense to me…
PS - I'm infected and am still whooping Smitty's ass.
Still battling.